Behind the Frenchman's back, surreptitiously, the banderillero Alfonso Robledo proffered his opiate to Morales. Morales shook his head.
"I thank you a thousand times, my son," he said in a feeble husky whisper; "but it is not right that I should rob you of that which your debilitated system needs. We are both sick men."
"But I am recovering, growing stronger hourly. Maestro, you have just slapped down!" The banderillero became quietly yet earnestly impassioned. "Ah, it breaks my heart to see my brave espada so weak! I want to help. Should you die through sacrifice to me, I will not care to live! I am only a peon of your cuadrilla; you are the great matador. My loss will not be felt! Take it, take it, please, Don Manuel of my soul!"
Morales hesitated. But only for a trice.
"No," he decided with heroic stubbornness. "This Frenchman can't have so black a heart. Seguramente, no! He is but teasing me to test my caliber. If I must, rather than rob you, Alfonso, I shall pay the hawk!"
"Eh?" broke in the thin nasal voice of Ferou. Unaware, he had returned and overheard Morales' words. "And you have changed your mind, Don Manuel? You are willing to pay? That is good! Now let me see; what was it you wanted?"
"I think your joke a little cruel, Senor Ferou. I would have you give me a mild opiate."
"Ah, yes; brandy and an opium pill. That will cost you now just one thousand pesetas! This wait, which you think such a cruel joke, Monsenor Morales, has cost you precisely five hundred pesetas more!"
The man was altogether inhuman.
"You hawk, you vulture of the slime, you blood-leech!" execrated Morales in a furious voice that shook through his lungs like a hoarse wind. "I shall rot in hell before ever I put one centesimo into your filthy claws!"